Forced Islamic Indoctrination of British children

from Winds of Jihad

* ”Uninvited men of Asian-heritage appearance” turn up with weapons to break up birthday party at Nelson Cricket Club (”Asian Heritage” = PC speak for Pakistani Muzz/ed)

The future of British children?

* Not for the first time, and not only in Britain. Muhammedans are pretty crafty when it comes to proselytizing (da’awa) However, what’s really scary is that the schools and government are behind this concerted effort to muslimize British children.

With thanks to the Opinionator

Yet another example of the forced inculcation of the non muslim British children into Islam appears on a video today. (ITV Local West Country) Under the guise of “Islamic awareness”, school children were brought to a mosque to have Islam explained to them by a cleric. Clearly the schools and government are behind this concerted effort to muslimize British children and this is just the most recent example of such brainwashing.

Sir Winston: Stop this, NOW!

–In August, 2007 - British children were forced to practice their penmanship by copying lines from the Islamic call to prayer. Thought the original Daily Mail article has disappeared (as they so frequently do) there are many online copies and reference to this incident. See HERE for one.

–October 2007 - Another school forced teachers AND children to dress up in muslim garb even though there were only two muslims at the school.

“A SCHOOL was yesterday accused of MAKING teachers dress up as Asians for a day – to celebrate a Muslim festival. Kids at the 257-pupil primary have also been told to don ethnic garb even though most are Christians. The morning assembly will be open to all parents – but dads are BARRED from a women-only party in the afternoon because Muslim husbands object to wives mixing with other men. ” For full article see HERE

Now this event is supposed to promote multicultural diversity at the school but apparently MEN DON’T HAVE TO BE MULTICULTURALLY DIVERSE AS A PARTY WAS HELD JUST FOR WOMEN -to placate the psychotic muslim husbands all of whom objected to their wives being anywhere near men who may be as predatory as they are - otherwise why the concern???

One has to wonder what the British boys thought when they were sequestered with the girls away from those big bad men. Let’s hope the school had counsellors on hand so the boys could discuss their resultant escalating fears of growing up and an explanation as to why Daddy is bad. I wonder if the lads were also told how women/girls dressed in Western clothes are considered “uncovered meat” for the taking/raping or how muslim men are encouraged to beat their wives. and all the other rubbish & sexual inequality that is part and parcel of the Religion of Peace.

One also wonder if the children were told that the body suffocating head to toe garb worn by muslims is the leading cause of RICKETS in the UK. (and likely worldwide)

Of course everyone participated in the clothing dhimmification - for fear of being labeled a “racist” if they did not —even though Islam is NOT a race.

–Just this past summer, July 2008, two non muslim British schoolboys were punished with detention for refusing to kneel and pray to allah:

“Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson.Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing muslim headgear was a breach of their human rights.” See HERE

Parental outrage is more than understandable - yet even the outrage didn’t stop some from worrying about the ludicrous “racist” canard.

Can you imagine the loud moaning and angry protests if muslim students were forced to write a verse from the King James Bible? Or a prayer to Jesus? to practice THEIR “penmanship”?!? How many muslim faith schools have transported their students to a Catholic or Protestant Church to learn about the Christian religion - all for religious understanding and ”diversity”? I wonder just how much learning about Christianity is going on in non-muslim religion education classes. One also wonders how many other ”non publicized” school events and misguided if not idiotic teachers have forced British schoolchildren to act as muslims.

As I previously posted - Islam is invading British life of the non muslim Brit - from the cradle to the grave as dhimmi politicians and educators herd British adults and children down the one way street of Islamisation.

How TARP Is Totally Changing the Executive Pay Debate

by Joanna Ossinger

The executive compensation debate has already been shifted by the recent financial crisis and the Treasury Department’s bailout program, and even more changes are expected in the coming months.

What’s more, the changes could be coming to a lot more companies than just those financial-services firms participating in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, as there’s talk of putting similar restrictions on a broad swath of companies – perhaps even many or all of those based in the U.S.

The changes range from advocate proposals, which are shifting to look at long-term performance metrics rather than immediate measures such as the stock price, to how compensation consultants and board compensation committees are approaching executive pay packages.

“We actually tore up our game card for proxy season,” said Rich Ferlauto, director of pension and benefit policy for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, who is a longtime advocate of corporate governance reform.

Much of the difficulty stems from the language in the Treasury’s provisions for limits on executive compensation that prohibit “excessive risk.”

“We believe that it is critical to provide more guidance on the meaning of such unnecessary and excessive risk,” said Richard L. Alpern of executive-compensation consulting firm Frederic W. Cook & Co. in a letter to the Treasury Department on this issue. “In the absence of guidelines, many compensation committees may be reluctant to adopt programs that encourage an appropriate level of risk taking.”

Frederic W. Cook isn’t the only firm wondering how to interpret the new guidance.

“How do you measure whether this pay program is going to cause excessive risk?” asked Steve Seelig, executive compensation counsel at consultancy Watson Wyatt. “There are easy ways, and more analytical ways. The easy thing to say is just to give salary and restricted stock. It’s probably going to make your behavior extremely conservative.”

Seelig gave the example of just one dilemma: “Perhaps it is the right thing to do, if you’re choosing a single industry, to say ‘my pay package in the same as everyone else in the industry, and I can attest that this is no more risky than anyone else’s.’ It also is equally plausible that you need to look at the entire market and compare your programs to the rest of the marketplace.”

The lack of clarity from Treasury could simply leave the interpretation of the regulations to be done by others.

“We liked the proposal, but it was rather vague, and we’re interpreting that through shareholder proposals,” Ferlauto of AFSCME said.

It might not be only financial companies participating in TARP that have to pay attention to these rules.

“I would also think that there will be broader follow-on legislation early in the next Congress,” Ferlauto said, that might extend these Treasury TARP rules out as far as “to any U.S.-based company.”

In particular, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has mentioned the possibility of introducing legislation to broaden the list of companies subject to these executive-pay limits.

It isn’t just the companies themselves that are being affected.

The Treasury’s rules could run counter to the efforts of corporate-governance activists, who have sought in recent years to link CEO pay to the company’s performance.

For example, it’s been suggested often that CEO pay levels be based on the stock price, or on some measure of earnings. But, would incentives to boost the stock price and earnings encourage executives to take “excessive risk?” Risk-taking, after all, is what gave so many companies their soaring stock prices and eye-popping profit increases for so long.

In response to these rules, corporate-governance advocates are moving away from linking pay to total shareholder return “and focusing on concepts like having long-term focuses in their pay metrics,” said Patrick McGurn, special counsel at RiskMetrics group, which owns Institutional Shareholder Services. He said provisions such as clawbacks and hold-to-retirement are being considered.

Ferlauto of AFSCME said the union, in response to these new rules, is now looking at two types of proposals they hope to get companies to implement.

“One requires long-term holding of any equity award for two years past the executive’s tenure with the company, so they couldn’t walk away with tens of millions of dollars and leave a mess. It puts the executive in the same position as the shareholder, as being a long-term equity holder,” he said.

The second, which Ferlauto noted was implemented by Swiss bank UBS earlier this week, would “require a short-term cash bonus incentive to be escrowed for three years, only paid out over time and only paid out if there’s continued performance at a benchmark level.”

Even though some companies have started to talk about reining in executive pay, a lot more needs to be done. For instance, Goldman Sachs (GS) recently announced that its seven top executives would get no bonus for 2008, just their $600,000 annual salaries.

“With Goldman, they’re sharing the pain -- but if you’re talking about tools to measure risk, forgoing pay is simply a weather vane,” McGurn of RiskMetrics said. “It’s showing that the wind blowing from Washington to Goldman is saying this year is not a good one.”

“We’ve yet to hear U.S. corporations, even those covered under TARP, really address the long-term focus versus short-term focus,” McGurn continued. “This issue is likely to come up in shareholder votes on board members -- I think you will see [shareholders] taking a closer look at the actual compensation plans.”

“The smart companies are the ones that are beginning to address this immediately,” he said.

Scalia Warns Judges against Relying on Foreign Law

by Jennifer Mesko, editor

He says the Founders of this country did not want us to emulate Europe.

The U.S. Constitution is not a "living document" and should not be filtered through foreign law.

That's the message U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had for a group of judges and lawyers in Houston this week.

"I fear the courts' use of foreign law in interpreting the Constitution will continue at an accelerated pace," the 72-year-old jurist told the local chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

Scalia called on judges to adhere to the constitutional authors' intent. He said the Founders of this country did not want us to emulate Europe.

Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said Scalia is right to criticize his colleagues for relying on foreign law to justify their decisions.

"If judges are just going to make stuff up, they should have the courage to admit it," he said. "If we're not vigilant as citizens to protect our law-making authority under the Constitution, the judiciary will increasingly take that authority from us and use it to create a society in their own image.

"We must cry 'foul' whenever the court dabbles in its fondness for the use of foreign law to justify its own excesses."

Wendy Long, legal counsel at the Judicial Confirmation Network, agreed.

"The whole idea of America was that we were going to be a nation built on the consent of the governed," she told Family News in Focus. "That means we’re only governed by laws that a majority of us have assented to — that includes the Constitution."

Mexican emigration drops 42% over last two years

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican emigration has dropped 42% over the last two years, a government study released Thursday showed, confirming that America has become less appealing amid an economic downturn and stepped up raids against illegal migrants.

About eight of every 1,000 Mexicans emigrated between February and May of this year, according to the survey conducted by the National Statistics and Geography Institute. That's a 42% drop from the same period in 2006. ....

Newt Gingrich Warns of ‘Gay Fascism’

By: Jim Meyers

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich warns that a “gay and secular fascism” in the U.S. is prepared to use violence to impose its will on the rest of the country.

Appearing on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” on Nov. 14, Gingrich and host Bill O’Reilly discussed the recently passed California ballot initiative, Proposition 8, amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

O’Reilly cited the protests by gay activists that broke out after the vote and troubling incidents associated with them, including a woman who had a cross knocked out of her hand and a Michigan church invaded by gay activists.

Gingrich responded: “I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact.”

He went on: “For that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite of what you're taught in Sunday school.”

The Georgia Republican, who left the House in January 1999, added: “I think when the left, when the radicals lost the vote in California, they are determined to impose their will on this country no matter what the popular opinion, no matter what the law of the land. You've watched them, for example, in Massachusetts, basically drive the Catholic Church out of running adoption services, drive Catholic hospitals out of offering any services, because [the radicals] impose secular rules that are fundamentally … sinful from the standpoint” of the church.”

Among the most prominent targets of gay outrage is the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which opponents say donated more than $20 million to the Yes on 8 campaign. It has been already become a focus of protests, with demonstrators gathered around Mormon temples not only in California but across the country.

African Americans, 70 percent of whom voted yes on Prop. 8, according to exit polls, have also become targets, according to Time Magazine’s Web site. Eyewitness reports published on the Internet indicate that racial epithets have been used against African Americans at protests in California - with some even directed at blacks who are fighting to repeal Prop. 8.

Gay rights activists also have begun publishing lists online exposing individuals and organizations that have donated money in support of Prop. 8, according to Time.

On AntiGayBlacklist.com, individuals who gave money toward Prop. 8 are publicized, and readers are urged not to patronize their businesses or services. The list of donors was culled from data on ElectionTrack.com, which follows all contributions of $1,000 and more and all contributions of more than $100 given before Oct. 17.

“Dentists,accountants, veterinarians and the like who gave a few thousand dollars to the cause are listed alongside major donors like the Container Supply Company Inc. of Garden Grove, which gave $250,000,” Time reported.

Gingrich had released a video urging Californians to vote for Proposition 8, which overrode a recent California Supreme Court decision that had recognized same-sex marriage in the state.

The Proposition passed by a vote of 52.2 percent to 47.8 percent.

Bug-Sized Spies: US Develops Tiny Flying Robots

DAYTON, Ohio -- If only we could be a fly on the wall when our enemies are plotting to attack us. Better yet, what if that fly could record voices, transmit video and even fire tiny weapons?

That kind of James Bond-style fantasy is actually on the drawing board. U.S. military engineers are trying to design flying robots disguised as insects that could one day spy on enemies and conduct dangerous missions without risking lives. ....

Wash Your Hands—Or Else!

(Compiler's note: Mom was right to insist that we wash our hands.) By: Sylvia Booth Hubbard

Health officials constantly warn of the importance of good hygiene, including washing your hands frequently, to stop the spread of germs that cause flu and colds. Now you can add the risk of worms in your brain to the list of problems caused by dirty hands.

Rosemary Alvarez began experiencing numbness in her arm and blurred vision. A cat scan revealed nothing, but an MRI showed something very deep inside her brain. “Once we saw the MRI we realized this is something not good,” neurosurgeon Dr. Peter Nakaji told Phoenix’s Fox News. “It’s something down in her brain stem which is as deep in the brain as you can be.”

She was rushed into surgery where doctors expected to remove a brain tumor. What they found was a worm! Dr. Nakaji began laughing when he realized his patient didn’t have a life-threatening brain tumor. “I was so pleased to know that it wasn’t going to be something terrible,” he said.

The surgery was a success and doctors believe Ms Alvarez will have a complete recovery. How did she get the worm? Doctors said she could have gotten it from eating undercooked pork or from someone who handled food after not washing their hands after using the bathroom.

Experts note that one person with dirty hands could pass along a disease—or worms—to many people. Ms Alvarez has a few words of advice for others. “Wash your hands, wash your hands.”

Government Warns of 'Catastrophic' U.S. Quake

KANSAS CITY, Missouri -- People in a vast seismic zone in the southern and midwestern United States would face catastrophic damage if a major earthquake struck there and should ensure that builders keep that risk in mind, a government report said on Thursday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said if earthquakes strike in what geologists define as the New Madrid Seismic Zone, they would cause "the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States."

FEMA predicted a large earthquake would cause "widespread and catastrophic physical damage" across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee -- home to some 44 million people.

Tennessee is likely to be hardest hit, according to the study that sought to gauge the impact of a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in order to guide the government's response.

In Tennessee alone, it forecast hundreds of collapsed bridges, tens of thousands of severely damaged buildings and a half a million households without water.

Transportation systems and hospitals would be wrecked, and police and fire departments impaired, the study said.

The zone, named for the town of New Madrid in Missouri's southeast corner, is subject to frequent mild earthquakes.

Experts have long tried to predict the likelihood of a major quake like those that struck in 1811 and 1812. These shifted the course of the Mississippi River and rang church bells on the East Coast but caused few deaths amid a sparse population.

"People who live in these areas and the people who build in these areas certainly need to take into better account that at some time there is ... expected to be a catastrophic earthquake in that area, and they'd better be prepared for it," said FEMA spokesperson Mary Margaret Walker.

American Public Flunks Basic Civics

by Deroy Murdock

However you regard the outcome of the November 4 election, it was heartening to watch 125 million Americans cast their ballots at precincts from coast to coast. Unfortunately, they and the many millions more who skipped the whole thing collectively know frightfully little about the government we just reaffirmed, the principles that undergird it, and the basic documents in which those ideas are enshrined. Thus, Americans slouch into the 21st Century -- a free and confident people blissfully unaware of how we got here or how we shall continue our 232-year-old tradition of limited self-government.

Consider these staggering data:

*Fully 71 percent of Americans flunked a 33-question civic-literacy survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Among 2,508 respondents ISI randomly selected, 1,791 failed this test of U.S. historical, political, and economic basics. The average score was just 49 out of 100 -- a solid F. While just 2.6 percent scored Bs on this quiz, only 0.8 percent earned As.

*Just 49 percent of rank-and-file Americans can identify the legislature, executive, and judiciary as our three branches of government.

*Forty percent of college graduates have no idea that corporate profits equal revenues minus expenses. (Thus, congressional demagoguery about “windfall profits” falls on sympathetic ears.) Only 24 percent of college grads realize that the First Amendment forbids the establishment of an official U.S. religion.

*Amazingly enough, this sample’s 164 self-identified elected officials know even less than laymen. They averaged only 44, as the blind lead the bland. Among office holders, 30 percent did not know that the Declaration of Independence heralds “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

*However, we the people closely follow popular culture here in the United States of “American Idol.” Only 21 percent of respondents correctly identified Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address as the source of the words “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” But 56 percent properly named Paula Abdul as a judge on the karaoke sensation “American Idol.”

God help us.

“Our study raises significant questions about whether citizens who voted in this year’s landmark presidential election really understand how our system of representative democracy works,” said Dr. Richard Brake, ISI’s Director of University Stewardship.

Lt. General Josiah Bunting III, the chairman of ISI’s National Civic Literacy Board, describes his initial reaction to these results as “somewhat short of despair, certainly one of depression.” He adds: “These questions are designed to elicit answers to fundamental questions. A citizen should know that the president cannot declare war. A citizen should know the circumstances of the founding of the country.”

Bunting calls our 24-hour news culture part of the problem:

“If you watch cable news channels, you see three or four streams of information,” he says. “This has nothing to do with using your mind as a muscle.”

Instead, Bunting and ISI hope to make “state legislators, governors, senators, and representatives active agents of change.” With taxpayers underwriting some $114 billion annually for government university education, Bunting believes “every student should be steeped in Western culture, U.S. political, economic, military, and diplomatic history, and free-market economics.”

Released Thursday morning at Washington’s National Press Club, “Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test on Their History and Institutions” is online at www.AmericanCivicLiteracy.org. Beyond a sobering analysis of this survey’s findings, readers can test their own civic literacy.

The grim results of ISI’s study reveal a crisis in this nation’s defining concept. In 1776, America’s Founding Fathers broke with Britain and established a country where men and women liberated from monarchic despotism would rule themselves, provided they were equipped with the requisite knowledge and wisdom. Will a people mesmerized by the televised humiliation of wannabe pop stars maintain this essential capacity for self-government? Thomas Jefferson’s warning remains as timely as ever: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.”

---

Mr. Murdock, a New York-based commentator to HUMAN EVENTS, is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University

Bodies of 10 Victims Shot Execution-Style Found in Mass Grave in Iraq

.... Al-Zahawi says authorities believe the people were killed about two years ago by Al Qaeda in Iraq. ....

Deportation efforts defended

Chertoff's letter to Perry reveals a clash of the titans

By JAMES PINKERTON

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff fired back Friday at Gov. Rick Perry's sharp criticism of federal efforts to deport illegal immigrants booked into Texas jails.

Chertoff sent Perry a four-page letter defending what he termed as aggressive and expanded efforts by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to remove illegal immigrants, while complaining of a lack of cooperation from local law enforcement who jailed them for criminal offenses.

"ICE, however, cannot remove and deport criminal aliens in State or local jails that it does not know about,' " Chertoff wrote. "State and local officials have to be willing to share that information in a timely fashion in order for such removal to take place."

Perry blasted DHS after a three-part Houston Chronicle series published last week indicated only one of four illegal immigrants booked into the Harris County Jail were processed by ICE for removal, allowing a number of immigrants to be released who later committed serious crimes.

The governor characterized the ICE removal operation as a "de facto catch and release program," and asked that ICE provide all Texas law enforcement agencies with access to an immigration database that contains fingerprints of immigrants with criminal records.

"I am outraged to learn that thousands of criminal aliens in our Texas jails who should have been detained, removed and deported ... were instead released back onto our streets after they completed their jail sentence," Perry wrote in a Nov. 18 letter to Chertoff.

Friday's letter from Chertoff was a continuation of a clash between the two officials, and followed Perry's ire on Thursday when DHS officials confirmed Texas would get a lower level of reimbursement for debris removal than Louisiana received after Hurricane Katrina.

In his letter, Chertoff said newspaper reports "fail to state that Harris County did not share with ICE existing lists it maintains of detainees who reported they were foreign born." Chertoff said the agency only received the list from Harris County on Nov. 18, and is vetting the database to determine the immigration status of each detainee. ....

Pirates will infest Gulf if US quits Iraq too soon: minister

Iraq's defence minister warned on Saturday that the Gulf would be infested by pirates and Iraq left at risk of attack by its neighbours if US forces leave the country too soon.

"Coalition forces are currently protecting the Gulf, and our navy will not receive its first ships until April 2009," Abdel Qader Jassem Mohammed al-Obeidi told a press conference in Baghdad.

If those forces "withdraw precipitously, our gulf will become like the Gulf of Aden, where there have been 95 acts of piracy," he said.

Obeidi was addressing journalists on his support for the controversial military pact that would allow US troops to remain in Iraq until the end of 2011, a deal now being considered by the Iraqi parliament. ....

Worst of financial crisis yet to come: IMF chief economist

The IMF's chief economist has warned that the global financial crisis is set to worsen and that the situation will not improve until 2010, a report said Saturday.

Olivier Blanchard also warned that the institution does not have the funds to solve every economic problem.

"The worst is yet to come," Blanchard said in an interview with the Finanz und Wirtschaft newspaper, adding that "a lot of time is needed before the situation becomes normal."

He said economic growth would not kick in until 2010 and it will take another year before the global financial situation became normal again. ....

Senate Bill 2433 THE GLOBAL POVERTY ACT

(Compiler's note: Must Read -- I THOUGHT THE United States WAS BROKE!! GUESS NOT?? IT’ has ALREADY STARTED PEOPLE….BE AWARE OF WHAT IS GOING ………. Please notify as many folks out there in your networks as you can about this item. And ASAP -- this bill must NOT pass! This is something we must watch. I received this a few minutes ago and was more than just a little surprised by the content. Why are Obama & Biden preparing to hand our country over to the United Nations. BTW -- the United Nations is probably the most infiltrated organization of Socialist/Communist in the world. Why this backdoor approach to the largest give away this nation has ever known, including the Martial Plan. How can we offer a bailout for all of our banks, for our auto industry and then add an amount that is greater than both of those without crippling the entire tax structure and economy of this once great country?)

Click here for additional information

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s2433/text

SENATE BILL S. 2433 THE GLOBAL POVERTY ACT

According to David Bossie, President of the group 'Citizens United for American Sovereignty', based out of Merrifield Virginia , website: http://www.citizensunited.org/
the above- mentioned Senate Bill (S. 2433) is a piece of legislation in the works that all Americans need to know about and know now!

This bill, sponsored by none other than Sen. Barack Obama, with the backing of Joe Biden on the Foreign Relations Committee, and liberal democrats in Congress, is nothing short of a massive giveaway of American wealth around the world, and a betrayal of the public trust, because, if passed, this bill would give over many aspects of our sovereignty to the United Nations.

The noble sounding name of this bill, 'The Global Poverty Act' is actually a Global Tax, payable to the United Nations, that will be required of all American taxpayers. If passed in the Senate, the House has already passed it, this bill would require the U.S. to increase our foreign aid by $65 BILLION per year, or $845 BILLION over the next 13 years! That's on top of the billions of dollars in foreign aid we already pay out!

In addition to the economic burdens this potential law would place on our precarious economy, the bill, if passed in the Senate, would also endanger our constitutionally protected rights and freedoms by obligating us to meet certain United Nations mandates. According to Senator Obama, we should establish these United Nations' goals as benchmarks for U.S. spending. What are they?

• The creation of a U.N. International Criminal Court having the power to try and convict American citizens and soldiers without any protection from the U.S. Constitution.

• A standing United Nations Army forcing U.S. soldiers to serve under U.N. command.

• A Gun Ban on all small arms and light weapons --which would repeal our Second Amendment right to bear arms.

• The ratification of the ' Kyoto ' global warming treaty and numerous other anti-American measures.

Recently, the Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Relations (where Sen. Joe Biden sits) approved this plan by a voice vote without any discussion! Why all the secrecy? If Senators Obama and Biden are so proud of this legislation, then why don't they bring it out into the light of day and let the American people have a look at it instead of hiding it behind closed doors and sneaking it through Congress for late night votes.

It may be only a matter of time before this dangerous legislation reaches a floor vote in the full body of the Senate.

Please write or call, email your representatives, the White House, the media, or anyone you think will listen, and express your opinions regarding this Global Tax giveaway and betrayal of the American people at a time when our nation and our people are already heavily burdened with the threats to our freedoms and economic prosperity..

Truly terrifying

by Katherine Heerbrandt

Their primary crime, according to Maryland State Police, was terrorism.

Their secondary "crimes" are listed on heavily blacked out MSP documents produced this week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland: "Antiwar protesters, antideath penalty protesters, environmental extremists, animal rights" advocates, and "anarchists."

The ACLU obtained the files through the Maryland Public Information Act and has more requests in the queue. The organization -- and those 53 who were stunned to find themselves targeted by state police between 2005 and 2007 -- are still not getting any real answers. Information in the released files, including those of local activists Barry Kissin and his wife Malgo Schmidt, is minimal because the MSP redacted most of it.

If the MSP is not more forthcoming, they can expect more lawsuits, ACLU attorney David Rocha said in an interview.

"The surest way to get sued is to not make a full accounting. Nobody wants money or years litigating this in the courts, they want the truth about how and why this happened," he said.

Who authorized the investigations and why? What is the federal connection, and are these citizens' names on federal watch lists too? If so, have they been purged?

Those are just some of the questions posed by three U.S. Senators, Ben Cardin, Russ Feingold and Barbara Mikulski. The trio sent a sternly worded request to the directors of federal intelligence and homeland security agencies.

"Americans exercising their First Amendment right to nonviolent protest should not end up on a federal terrorism watch list," Sen. Mikulski said in a press release. "I am committed to finding out why these events happened and will work to make sure it never happens again."

Cardin spokeswoman Sue Walitsky said in an interview that the point of the letter is to ensure that safeguards are in place to protect law-abiding citizens.

About 1 million names, many U.S. citizens, are on federal terrorism watch lists. The sheer magnitude of the list, which grows by 20,000 names a month, coupled with the fact that it erroneously includes innocent Americans like Sen. Ted Kennedy, commercial pilots and federal air marshals, makes a mockery out of the entire initiative. How is this bureaucratic boondoggle making us safer?

Federal regulations prohibit revealing those names. To find out if you are on the list, you will have to try and board an airplane, apply for a government job or get pulled over for a traffic violation. If you are whisked away and interrogated by federal agents, then you'll know.

Getting off the list is much harder apparently than getting on it. Ask Sen. Kennedy, who had to make a personal call to the head of Homeland Security to have his name removed.

Who is truly being terrorized here?

Maryland's example and the senators' letter put the spotlight on the federal watch list, and that's encouraging.

Meanwhile, given the [MSP's] unwillingness to be straight with citizens of Maryland, clear legislation is a must, Attorney Rocha said.

"Just trust us is hardly a credible response at this point," he added.

Five state lawmakers, including Delegate Rick Weldon, will sponsor legislation next year aimed at better oversight and accountability.

"If our Constitution still means something, and I believe it does, then we owe it to future generations to protect them from a government that arbitrarily picks and chooses who to monitor," Weldon said. "I am more fearful of an overbearing government presence than I am a harmless group of activists and protesters!"

Say, is Tehran Ready for Obama’s Talk-Therapy Sessions?

by Ben-Peter Terpstra

I’m happy to confess that Obama’s story is inspirational. If you have a white mother, a black father, and millions more than your opponent, then Washington is your oyster.

Of course, there are some unavoidable questions surrounding the community organizer’s move to the White House. One famous politician, for example, even advances the view that under Obama’s watch, America will face serious attacks within six months.

The Senator in question even suggests that (prepare yourselves) the nation will come under attack because terrorists like to test fresh faces. But there’s more. The concerned man’s name is Joe Biden, Obama’s Vice-President-elect.

Then, there is the Iran controversy. Or, the potential for war. Is Obama fit to lead?

Some people are raising doubts about his inexperience.

Why: “The rap against Obama on foreign policy,” writes David Freddoso in The Case Against Barack Obama, “is not that so much he’s inconsistent but that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” So, who – besides Miss America – believes in meeting Tehran, and terrorist-friendly states without preconditions? Certainly, Hillary Clinton’s decision to “not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year” and her statement that she didn’t “want to be used for propaganda purposes” shows more depth.

Reasons Freddoso, “For Clinton, there had to be some preconditions – how else could such a meeting be in the interest of the United States? There had to be an upside.”

Some people are raising concerns about his anti-wire tapping positions.

Why: In Fleeced, Bill Clinton’s former political consultant, Dick Morris, and Eileen McGann, an attorney, point out that “Barack Obama would water down the PATRIOT Act dangerously, leaving Americans far more vulnerable to terrorism.” More frighteningly, they also state: “Obama speaks with passion and certitude on the dangerous changes he would demand in the PATRIOT Act.”

Hello Obama, goodbye Brooklyn Bridge? Morris and McGann warn: “The NSA first found out about this plot to destroy it” in 2002 “through a warrantless wiretap – of the very sort Obama would eliminate.” So, will the Left’s opposition to warrantless wiretaps give terrorists more time to plot future attacks, and leave security hawks with less time and resources to prevent atrocities? And, this leads us to a very real concern. Is it okay to sacrifice the lives of families because you hate offending Muslim sensitivities?

Some people are raising questions about his Neville Chamberlainesque philosophy.

Why: “Since the Carter administration, U.S. presidents, again both Democratic and Republican alike,” argues Jerome R. Corsi, in The Obama Nation, “have failed to make progress stopping the Iranian revolution from spreading across the region.” The question to ask: “What exactly will Obama do differently when the Carter and Clinton administrations demonstrated how intractable the mullahs are, even in sincere efforts to negotiate?”

In the political scientist’s view, then, American “presidents who have distinguished themselves in foreign policy have done so from a position of strength.” For example: “FDR won World War II by fighting Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, not by negotiating with them,” although in my view he was a day late, and a few dollars short, but he did finally – finally – stand up. Likewise, “ “Demanding ‘unconditional surrender’ positioned FDR for victory, not a willingness to meet with Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo in unconditional surrender.”Ronald Reagan won the Cold War by pursuing Star Wars and revitalizing the U.S. military, not by conceding to Gorbachev in Iceland.”

Some people are raising queries about his intellectual prowess.

Why: Among Democrats (particularly liberal elites), there is a myth that Obama is “smart,” and that your average conservative, say, Gov. Palin, is “dumb.” While the legacy media parrots false rumors about Sister Sarah’s “bad” geography skills from nameless cowards, questions surrounding Barack “57 states” Obama’s IQ are off limits, for some peculiar reason. Is this the sign of depth or shallowness? What is the difference between Palin’s so-called gaffe and Obama’s?

But consider liberal voters. In 2008, the paradox of Obama’s “scholarly” voting community is bizarre: while the Left claims that “smart” people vote for The One, poll results from Zogby, a relatively liberal group, reveals that just “2% of voters who supported Barack Obama on Election Day obtained perfect or near-perfect scores on a post election quiz which,” only set out to gauge their basic “knowledge of statements and scandals associated with the presidential campaign.” Remarkably, some Democrats even have trouble differentiating between talking points from Saturday Night Live’s comedy lineup, and news reports (although admittedly, they both appear extremely partisan).

So, in the end, I guess that even if you have a white mother, a black father, and rich moneymen, you can’t buy long-term world peace, and rewind “global warming,” but you can win over dumb voters. For now, Iran is jubilant.