Muslim Brotherhood (re)asserts that jihad against infidels is obligatory

And yet, Western leaders and thinkers often describe them as moderate, potential allies against the more radical elements,such as al-Qaeda.

"Muslim Brotherhood Website: Jihad Against Non-Muslims Is Obligatory," from MEMRI, October 17:

On a website devoted to Ramadhan, the Muslim Brotherhood posted a series of articles by Dr. Ahmad 'Abd Al-Khaleq about Al-Walaa Wa'l-Baraa, an Islamic doctrine which, in its fundamentalist interpretation, stipulates absolute allegiance to the community of Muslims and total rejection of non-Muslims and of Muslims who have strayed from the path of Islam.

This "doctrine" is as old as Islam itself, and has been articulated and stressed by any number of Islamists, such as Ayman Zawahiri, who wrote some sixty pages dedicated to this doctrine (see The Al Qaeda Reader for a translated version).

In his articles, the writer argues that according to this principle, a Muslim can come closer to Allah by hating all non-Muslims - Christians, Jews, atheists, or polytheists - and by waging jihad against them in every possible manner.

Stealth, tongue, sword, money, propaganda, lies (taqiyya), you name it.

For full report, visit http://www.memriiwmp.org/content/en/report.htm?report=2877.

Link between child porn and Muslim terrorists discovered in police raids

Richard Kerbaj and Dominic Kennedy

A link between terrorism plots and hardcore child pornography is becoming clear after a string of police raids in Britain and across the Continent, an investigation by The Times has discovered. Images of child abuse have been found during Scotland Yard antiterrorism swoops and in big inquiries in Italy and Spain.

Secret coded messages are being embedded into child pornographic images, and paedophile websites are being exploited as a secure way of passing information between terrorists.

British security services are also aware of the trend and believe that it requires further investigation to improve understanding of terrorists’ methods and mindsets. Concerns within the Metropolitan Police led to a plan to run a pilot research project exploring the nature of the link. One source familiar with the proposal said that this could eventually lead to the training of child welfare experts to identify signs of terrorist involvement as they monitor pornographic sites.

Concerns have already been expressed at Cabinet minister level about the risk of vulnerable Muslim youths being exploited by older men.

Officers have noted that child sex abuse images have been found during investigations into some of the most advanced suspected plots. However, it is understood that the proposed research project was never implemented because the AntiTerrorism Branch was overwhelmed by the sheer number of cases it was having to deal with.

It is not clear whether the terrorists were more interested in the material for personal gratification or were drawn to child porn networks as a secure means of sending messages. In one case fewer than a dozen images were found; in another, 40,000.

British security sources confirmed that such a link had been discovered in several cases. They noted the contradiction between people supposedly devoted to theocracy and Islamic fundamentalism and their use of child pornography. “It shows that these people are very confused,” a source said. “Here they are hating Western decadence but actually making use of it and finding that they enjoy this stuff.”

Baroness Neville-Jones, Conservative security spokeswoman and former chairwoman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, said: “The information about a possible link between extremism and child pornography potentially provides useful insight into three things: the methods that extremists use to communicate; the methods they use to target vulnerable people in society; and the techniques they seek to use to conceal their online activities.” She added: “There is no doubt that these possible linkages should merit further research.”

Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP and chairman of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, said: “This is an important development. We have to do more than just the police work. It needs child protection, criminological and psychological work. It could become a very important weapon in the fight against terrorism.” He urged researchers to review cases where terrorists had been convicted to look for this link.

The first British suspicions of a link between child sex abuse and jihadis emerged in London in 2006 when antiterrorism police in two unrelated investigations were shocked to find computerised images of hardcore child pornography. The key case that tipped off the security services to a plausible link involved the “White-chapel Rapist”, Abdul Makim Khalisadar. A former Mujahidin and a preacher at the East London Mosque, he was being examined for his links to a hardcore Islamic militant who was later convicted of terrorism. Khalisadar was never convicted of terrorist offences. The other investigation involved a young religiously observant Muslim.

The Times has learnt that a criminal investigation also found child pornography on computers after a raid in 2001 at a mosque run by an al-Qaeda recruiter in Milan. Italian police believe that the images were encoded with messages. At a forthcoming terrorism trial in Spain, the alleged mastermind of a Muslim cell has also been accused of downloading hundreds of child sex abuse pictures and videos.

Meanwhile, police uncovered a right-wing terrorist plot when they raided a home after being tipped off about pornographic images. This June, the Nazi sympathiser Martyn Gilleard was jailed for 16 years after being found guilty of terrorism. Police found 39,000 indecent images of children at his flat in Yorkshire.

Invisible ink for the internet age

— Messages may be concealed within digital images and audio, video or other files. The method is called steganography, derived from the Greek for “covered writing”

— Although the average person will not be able to detect the hidden messages by either listening to or viewing a file, the intended recipients can use applications to reverse the steganography process and gain access to the information

— Experts say that the advancement in encryption technology is outpacing the authorities’ abilities to monitor suspected terrorists and paedophiles

— Italian authorities uncovered files of child abuse images that had been manipulated by a terrorist cell after a raid on the Via Quaranta mosque in Milan in November 2001. Investigators claimed that the terrorist cell encoded the images before sending them to each other

Murtha: ‘No Question That Western Pennsylvania Is A Racist Area’

Video ----- AP: U.S. Rep. John Murtha says his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist and that could reduce Barack Obama's victory margin in the state by 4 percentage points.

OBAMA FIRES A 'ROBIN HOOD' WARNING SHOT

WASHINGTON - You won't find it in his campaign ads, but Barack Obama let slip his plans to become a modern-day Robin Hood in the White House, confiscating money from the rich to give to the poor.

MORE: Mac's Tax Ax A Saving Grace

MORE: O Poster Expelled At City HS

MORE: McCainiac Names Tot After GOP Ticket

MORE: Barack Backs Away From ACORN

Conservatives yesterday ripped Obama after he was caught on video telling an Ohio plumber that he intends to take the profits of small-business owners and "spread the wealth around" to those with lesser incomes.

The fracas over Obama's tax plan broke out Sunday outside Toledo when Joe Wurzelbacher approached the candidate.

Wurzelbacher said he planned to become the owner of a small plumbing business that will take in more than the $250,000 amount at which Obama plans to begin raising tax rates.

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the blue-collar worker asked.

After Obama responded that it would, Wurzelbacher continued: "I've worked hard . . . I work 10 to 12 hours a day and I'm buying this company and I'm going to continue working that way. I'm getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream."

"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama told him. "I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too.

Then, Obama explained his trickle-up theory of economics.

"My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Critics said Obama let the cat out of the bag.

"It's clear that his main goal is redistribution of wealth, not growth," said Andy Roth with the anti-tax group Club for Growth. "He's perfectly happy to destroy wealth as long as he can redistribute it."

Obama has been meticulous, Roth said, to conceal the "socialistic" nature of his tax plans. "But every once in a while, he lets it slip," he said.

Republican candidate John McCain yesterday charged that Obama's comment was telling.

"This explains how Senator Obama can promise an income-tax cut for millions who aren't even paying income taxes right now," he said in Pennsylvania.

"My plan isn't intended to force small businesses to cut jobs to pay higher taxes so we can 'spread the wealth around.' My plan is intended to create jobs and increase the wealth of all Americans."

Meanwhile, a New York Times/CBS poll last night showed Obama moving into a commanding 53-39 percent lead.

Mid-air drama as passengers disarm drunk would-be hijacker 'who said he had a bomb'

A drunk man who claimed to have a bomb and tried to hijack a packed jet has been quickly overpowered by fellow passengers.

Some of the 162 passengers on board the Turkish Airlines jet tackled the man after he passed a note to a stewardess claiming he had a bomb strapped to his body.

The hijacker had attempted to take control of the aircraft as it flew en route from the southern Turkish resort of Anatalya to St Petersburg in Russia.

A Turkish Airlines jet has been hijacked on its way to St Petersburg

'He was so drunk, he gave a note to a stewardess claiming to have explosives on him,' said Temel Kotil, the manager of Turkish Airlines.

No explosives were discovered on the passenger.

The drama took place over Belarus and the plane has now landed in St Petersburg.

Last August, two Muslim men attempted to hijack a Turkish-bound jet as it flew from northern Cyprus and demanded that it be diverted to Iran.

After a stand-off with police at Anatalya airport in southern Turkey the pair surrendered and later apologised for their actions.

In 2006 a man attempted to hijack a Turkish Airlines jet as it flew to Istanbul.

Greek and Italian jets were scrambled and the jet was forced to land in Italy where the hijacker eventually surrendered.

U.S.: Every week, we kill another Number Two!

from Winds of Jihad

Al-Qaeda Number Two Dead! Rest in pieces!

* 88 Talibs roasted in multiple clashes* which calls for 6336 virgins and 2464 boyz!

* Taliban mock West for calling Afghanistan unwinnable

No, not Zawahiri; this is the Iraq Number Two. As we all celebrate this minor victory (it seems almost weekly now that an “al-Qaeda #” from country X is slain) we should also ponder this far more reaching question: will the slaying of individual terrorists — be they Zawahiri or bin Laden — have any real effects on the long term goals of the jihad? Will it eliminate the theological mandate of jihad and the division of the world into two perpetually warring halves — Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb? Likening jihadis to the ever-sprouting heads of the hydra monster of legend, I tried addressing this question here, when there was a lot of hubbub about the deaths of Abu Hamza and earlier Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who were successively al-Qaeda’s Number Twos in Iraq). So, yes; killing them off — a very good thing. But let’s also remember the differences between symptom and cause.

“Al-Qaeda’s Iraq number two killed: US military,” from AFP, with thanks to Raymond from DW

Innovation of the Week: Providing power when unthinkable disaster strikes

by David Schwartz

Researchers at Frostburg (MD) State University are working with Instant Access Networks, LLC, to perfect a system that would use renewable energy to power electromagnetic pulse-protected microgrids. The microgrids are designed to provide electricity for critical infrastructure facilities in case of a disaster, such as nuclear explosion or massive solar storm, that wipes out conventional electrical systems. IAN has developed a patent-pending shielding technology that encloses a room or similar structure and protects it from electromagnetic pulse (EMP) events. The shielding, using electrically isolated layers of steel and aluminum, is up to 70% lighter than materials traditionally used by the military and other sources for EMP protection, enabling EMP-safe rooms to be portable, the company says. These shielded rooms can protect fiber optic network nodes and data or communication centers and house generators. When several are connected, they can create microgrids that could provide power to entire communities. “The idea is to create islands of power to reduce the cascading effects of a wide-scale failure,” says IAN president Charles Manto. Though it may be unthinkable, he points out, such an event is far from impossible. “A rogue state or terrorist organization could easily acquire nuclear material for a smaller weapon for $20 million,” Manto says. “That weapon could be fitted onto a Scud missile for as little as $100,000, fired and detonated 80 miles into the air and affect the entire U.S. east coast, causing up to $10 trillion in damage before you spend a nickel to fix anything.” A natural disaster in the form of a devastating solar storm is not unprecedented, he added. An event like the 1859 solar storm that shorted out telegraph wires in the U.S. and Europe could wreak havoc on today’s electrical systems.

The challenge FSU researchers will be tackling is finding a long-term energy source for microgrids, since it could take years to rebuild power infrastructure after a strong EMP event. A research team at the school will evaluating wind and solar solutions, calculate the energy consumption profile of mission-critical facilities and infrastructures, and develop an optimal design for the sustainable energy supply units and microgrid. “Long-term, renewable energy is critical for powering back-up electrical systems,” says Manto. “What’s more, in EMP scenarios the cost model for renewable energy changes because you have to eliminate the cheap, non-renewable fuels and the availability of the present electric grid. Renewable energy, even at a higher price, becomes cost-justified.” FSU is acquiring a residential-scale wind turbine for the project, which will be used to develop models for powering the microgrid. University researchers and IAN staff will also create designs to protect a wind turbine from an EMP attack. In addition, the university and IAN are planning to build the nation’s first EMP-protected business continuity park. The park will give urban area businesses and government agencies a remote place to backup their data and an alternative place to work in the wake of a disaster, in keeping with a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) all federal agencies are required to have. Go to: MarketWatch

Obama – ‘Spread the Wealth Around’ Reveals Socialist Plan for America

At a recent campaign appearance in Ohio, Sen. Obama was approached by plumber Joe Wurzelbacher, who has concerns about Obama’s proposed tax policies. FamilySecurityMatters.org’s Pam Meister had a candid conversation with him about his experience. ....

About 200,000 Ohio voters have records discrepancies

By TERRY KINNEY

CINCINNATI (AP) - Close to one in every three newly registered Ohio voters will end up on court-ordered lists being sent to county election boards because they have some discrepancy in their records, an elections spokesman said Wednesday.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner estimated that an initial review found that about 200,000 newly registered voters reported information that did not match motor-vehicle or Social Security records, Brunner spokesman Kevin Kidder said. Some discrepancies could be as simple as a misspelling, while others could be more significant.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati sided with the Ohio Republican Party on Tuesday and ordered Brunner to set up a system that provides those names to county elections boards. The GOP contends the information will help prevent fraud.

"Things already are in motion to comply," Kidder said. "We're working to establish these processes on how we can make this work. The computer work actually began last week."

About 666,000 Ohioans have registered to vote since January.

Brunner previously cross-checked new-voter registrations with databases run by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle and the Social Security Administration and made the results available online, but the 6th Circuit said the information was not accessible in a way that would help county election boards ferret out mismatches.

Brunner, a Democrat, told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer on Wednesday that she is concerned the court decision is a veiled attempt at disenfranchising voters. Brunner said she'll urge counties not to force these people to use provisional ballots.

The court gave Brunner until Friday to get election boards the information but it was unclear whether that deadline would be met. The court set no penalty for missing the deadline.

County election officials were trying to determine Wednesday how they will respond once they get the information.

"I'm very concerned with these new requirements as we get closer to Election Day," said Steve Harsman, director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections in Dayton. He said his staff already is working 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

"It's clearly going to have an impact in regard to resources we have to expend to resolve discrepancies," said Jeff Hastings, chairman of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland.

"We've had about 100,000 (registrations) since January and of those about 34,000 since the primary. We will do whatever is required of us."

Also Wednesday, the Ohio Republican Party said it has filed public records requests with all 88 counties for copies of forms submitted by newly registered voters, especially those who registered and cast an absentee ballot on the same day during a one-week window earlier this month.

Brunner has said that 13,141 Ohioans registered and voted immediately during the window.

"We've seen reports of fraudulent registrations, and we want to see those forms first-hand," said Jason Mauk, the state GOP's executive director.

British government minister warns of terror threat

The threat of another major terrorist attack is building in Britain, a government security minister said Tuesday, a day after the House of Lords rejected a measure that would have extended the amount of time police can hold terror suspects without charge. ....

U.S. Drops “Dirty Bomb” Claim in Terror Case

The United States has dropped “dirty bomb” and poison gas accusations against an alleged co-conspirator of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who is serving a 17-year prison sentence for supporting terrorism, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, June 4).

British resident Binyam Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and, after spending more than two years in unknown locations, was placed at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2004. U.S. Justice Department officials originally alleged that he and Padilla planned to detonate a radiological weapon in the United States or release cyanide gas in nightclubs. Those charges were eventually dropped from the case against Padilla, and the department recently removed them Mohammed as well (see GSN, Jan. 22).

“There are no serious, hard charges against Mohammed," said his attorney, Air Force Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley. “The whole thing the government was hanging its hat on, pursuing Mr. Mohammed, was the dirty bomb.”

Mohammed attorneys told the Post that they believe the charges were dropped so the Justice Department would not be forced to reveal classified documents showing that Mohammed had been tortured.

A U.S. judge had ordered the department to provide exculpatory material to Mohammed’s lawyers by Oct. 6. Serious charges were dropped that day.

“It's no coincidence that this happened when the judge ordered discovery,” said Clive Stafford Smith, another Mohammed attorney. “It's clear they think that by dropping the allegations they can avoid having to turn over the documents.”

Mohammed now faces a remaining charge of receiving al-Qaeda training in Afghanistan, and British officials have asked that he be released to their custody, Bradley said (Peter Finn, Washington Post, Oct. 15).

U.S. Chemical Weapons Disposal Continues

The U.S. Army has made continuing progress in disposing of chemical weapons stored around the country, according to updates issued in September and October (see GSN, Sept. 10).

The Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Alabama as of yesterday had destroyed nearly 19,000 land mines filled with VX nerve agent, along with nearly 25,000 gallons of the chemical warfare material once contained in the weapons.

The plant has eliminated more than half of the weapons stored at the Anniston Chemical Depot. Hundreds of thousands of mustard blister agent weapons remain to be destroyed (see GSN, Sept. 29; Anniston Chemical Activity release, Oct. 14)...

U.N. Nuclear Agency Resumes Operations in North Korea

The International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday resumed monitoring operations at North Korean nuclear facilities, Reuters reported (see GSN, Oct. 14).

Pyongyang last week barred the U.N. nuclear inspectors from all facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex. The move came during the latest deadlock in the North Korean denuclearization process and was reversed after the Bush administration removed the regime from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Agency seals are being reapplied to equipment at the plutonium processing facility at Yongbyon and surveillance cameras are being reactivated, according to one diplomat in Vienna.

Inspectors have also been allowed back into North Korea’s plutonium-producing nuclear reactor and the nuclear fuel fabrication plant at Yongbyon...

AUDIO INTERVIEW: Building Resiliency

What impact will the current economic turmoil have on homeland security? In his weekly chat with Federal News Radio, HSToday Editor David Silverberg discusses how homeland security may focus on civil projects to build resiliency into the nation's infrastructure.


Click here to listen to the interview

Schumer of Arabia

by Wall Street Journal

Here's a question for New York Senator Charles Schumer: Why can Arab allies of the United States be trusted to manufacture microprocessors here but not be trusted to manage the commercial activities of US ports? Two years ago the hyperactive Democrat led efforts to block a United Arab Emirates company -- Dubai Ports World -- from operating six US ports. So imagine our surprise to find the Senator at a press conference last week outside of Albany, where he was taking credit for a deal between computer chip maker Advanced Micro Devices and an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund to build a plant in upstate New York. "Bringing AMD to New York is something we worked on long and hard, and I'm glad to see it bear fruit," said Mr. Schumer, who was flanked by former AMD Chairman Hector Ruiz. "I've worked closely with Dr. Ruiz over the last few years to make sure AMD has everything they need to bring this plant to the capital region." Standing nearby was Hillary Clinton, the junior Senator from New York who also opposed the Dubai deal. In 2006, Mr. Schumer said that letting a state-run company from a friendly Arab nation manage port operations was "a homeland security accident waiting to happen." Port security is the responsibility of the Coast Guard and US Customs officials, not port management companies. And the Dubai deal had already been cleared by the Departments of Treasury, Defense and Homeland Security. But thanks to Mr. Schumer's politically motivated alarmism, the deal fell through and Dubai Ports was forced to divest itself of US holdings. Now comes another foreign investment venture from the same Arab nation. Under the plan announced last week, Abu Dhabi's investment fund will own a majority stake in a new corporate entity being spun off from AMD. New York lured the company by offering $1.2 billion in grants and tax breaks to locate in the state. Mr. Schumer's reaction is to not only endorse the deal but also take more credit than he deserves for making it happen. Plans for the plant were first announced in 2006 by AMD and former Governor George Pataki but were stalled due to AMD's recent financial troubles. We're happy to see Mr. Schumer's change of heart about foreign direct investment in the U.S. Economically depressed upstate New York can certainly use the 1,500 jobs that the new facility is expected to create. But the Senator's about-face also exposes the faux outrage of his earlier claim that such investments threaten national security. Mr. Schumer's opposition to Dubai Ports World had everything to do with politics in an election year. Democrats wanted to play to their protectionist base while also appearing to take a tougher stance on homeland security than the Bush Administration. Republicans like New York Representative Peter King, who was looking to distance himself from an unpopular President, were all to willing to go along for the ride. Properly vetted foreign investment in the U.S. should be welcome, not rejected for political reasons. This investment often leads to domestic jobs and economic growth. And in the case of UAE, it's coming from one of America's strongest Middle East allies in the war on terror. Mr. Schumer might keep this in mind going forward, even for deals that don't directly benefit his home state.

CIA Tactics Endorsed in Secret Memos

By Joby Warrick

The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects -- documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials about a possible backlash if details of the program became public.

The classified memos, which have not been previously disclosed, were requested by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet more than a year after the start of the secret interrogations, according to four administration and intelligence officials familiar with the documents. Although Justice Department lawyers, beginning in 2002, had signed off on the agency's interrogation methods, senior CIA officials were troubled that White House policymakers had never endorsed the program in writing.

The memos were the first -- and, for years, the only -- tangible expressions of the administration's consent for the CIA's use of harsh measures to extract information from captured al-Qaeda leaders, the sources said. As early as the spring of 2002, several White House officials, including then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney, were given individual briefings by Tenet and his deputies, the officials said. Rice, in a statement to congressional investigators last month, confirmed the briefings and acknowledged that the CIA director had pressed the White House for "policy approval." ....

Obama raised $1 million for foreign thug's election

Democrat joined Libya's Gadhafi among top contributors to Odinga

By Jerome R. Corsi

Raila Odinga

NEW YORK – Sen. Barack Obama, with a donation of nearly $1 million, and a son of Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi were among the biggest contributors to the presidential campaign of controversial Kenyan leader Raila Odinga, according to an internal document obtained by WND.

The memo was prepared by the head of Odinga's campaign finance accounting section, Shakeel Shabbir, as an official report delivered to the national treasurer for Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement party, or ODM.

Among the 72 individuals and organizations that contributed money to Odinga's 2007 presidential run in Kenya, Shabbir lists "Friends of Senator B.O." as having donated 66,000,000 Kenyan schillings, about $950,000.

Saif el-Islam Gadhafi, the Libyan strongman's second oldest son, reportedly donated 53,450,000 Kenyan schillings, about $765,000.

According to several highly credible ex-ODM sources WND interviewed in Kenya, the $950,000 raised for Odinga's campaign came from a series of private meetings arranged for Odinga by Mark Lippert, a foreign policy adviser in Obama's U.S. Senate office. The meetings with top-dollar Obama fundraisers and donors took place during Odinga's 2006 trip to the U.S. ....

Obama’s terrorist co-chairman

J. Michael Sharman

Beginning in 1995, Barack Obama and Bill Ayers served together on the board of the Annenberg Challenge Project. Before it closed in 2003, CNN reports, it had given hundreds of thousands of dollars to social change projects promoted by Ayers. 1
Ayers was the person responsible for getting the Annenberg grant for Chicago. 2 He was one of the three founders of the Project. 3 The Project’s minutes note that Ayers and Obama wrote its bylaws together. 4 Ayers was the co-chair of the Project’s “Collaborative”, which shaped its educational policy. 5
In 1995, a few months after Obama became chairman of the Annenberg Challenge, his political career began when state Sen. Alice Palmer introduced Obama to a dozen-or-so folks gathered in the Hyde Park living room of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn as the person to take her place in the Illinois State Senate. 6
In 1997, Obama wrote a glowing review in the Chicago Tribune for one of Ayers’ books. 7 CNN also reported that he was listed with Ayers as a panelist at a forum organized by his wife, Michelle Obama. 8
From 1999 to 2001 9 , Ayers and Obama also served together on the board of the Woods Foundation of Chicago, and grants were made from it to Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ, and to the Children and Family Justice Center, which is run by Ayers’ wife, Bernadine Dohrn. 10
So why, during an April 2008 debate with Hillary Clinton, did Obama claim that he knew Ayers simply “as a guy who lives in my neighborhood?” 11 William “Bill” Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn first met in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1967. Until recently, though, she was the more famous of the two, mainly because of her incendiary speeches: In 1969, when Charlie Manson went on his killing spree, Dohrn told an SDS rally, “Dig it! Manson killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach.” 12
It was she who made the public announcement on May 21, 1970: “Hello. This is Bernardine Dohrn. I’m going to read a declaration of a state of war. This is the first communication from the Weatherman Underground. … Within the next 14 days, we will attack a symbol or institution of Amerikan injustice.” 13
In 1970, Ayers’ then-girlfriend, Diana Oughton, and two other people were killed in a bombmaking accident in Greenwich Village. Ayers went underground. By that time, Bernadine Dorhn was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List” 14, and the Weather Underground 15 was listed as a “Domestic Terrorist Organization” by the FBI. 16
Ayers and Dohrn have three children: In 1977 they had Zayd Atheola, named after a Black Panther killed in a shootout with police four years earlier; In 1980 they had Malik Cochise, named after Malcolm X and the Apache war chief; and Chesa, Kathy Boudin’s son, has been raised by Dohrn and Ayers since his mother was jailed for a Brinks robbery when he was 14 months old. 17
In an August 22, 1996 PBS interview with Dorhn and Ayers, they were asked by interviewer Elizabeth Brackett, “As you look back now, the bombings, what the Weathermen did claim credit for, would you do it differently now?” Ayers said, “I doubt it…[W]hat we did was certainly serious and had consequences for us personally, but I don’t think it was, it was anything that was uncalled for. I mean, I think it was called for.”
Dorhn answered, “The movement was never not into violence.” 18
On September 11, 2001, in an incredible ironic coincidence of timing, under the headline, “No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives”, The New York Times published an interview with Bill Ayers that had this now-famous opening line: “‘I don’t regret setting bombs,’’ Bill Ayers said. ‘I feel we didn’t do enough.’” 19
The NYT interviewer reminded Ayers that in 1970 he had summed up the Weatherman creed by saying, “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.” He told her, “It was a joke about the distribution of wealth.”
The reason for the NYT interview was to launch Ayers’ new book, “Fugitive Days”, in which he admitted participating in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972.
“Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,” he wrote.
In his book, Ayers also claimed responsibility for breaking Timothy Leary out of jail. Writer Richard Stern, reports of another prison break Ayers was involved in: during dinner with Dohrn and Ayers, Ayers was describing to Stern how “they’d gotten Eldridge Cleaver from a California prison to a Morocco haven” before Dohrn stopped him from saying more. 20
After Malik’s birth in 1980, they decided to come out of hiding. Their Federal charges had been dropped years earlier due to prosecutorial misconduct, and Dorhn pleaded guilty to reduced state charges and got a fine and three years probation. A few months later, when she was asked to testify about Kathy Boudin’s Brinks robbery, she claimed she knew nothing about it. The feds then asked for a writing sample, Dorhn refused, and she was given 7 months for refusing to testify. “I felt grand juries were illegal and coercive,” said Dorhn, a law school graduate. 21
It was during a jail furlough that Dorhn and Ayers married. 22
The August 2001 issue of Chicago Magazine had an article about Ayers titled “No Regrets” accompanied by a posed photo of Ayers in an urban alleyway, nonchalantly standing on a crumbled American flag.
In that month before 9/11, the article recites his past of domestic terrorism and reports: “This—violence, death, and white-hot rhetoric—is his past and Ayers insists he has no regrets. ‘I acted appropriately in the context of those times,’ he says.” 23
Three days after 9/11, David Horowitz wrote of an interview he did with Ayers ten years before: “Ayers reviewed his activities as a terrorist for my tape recorder. When he was done, he broke into a broad, Jack Horner grin and summed up his experience: ‘Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country.’” 24
In 2003, the film “The Weather Underground”, with interviews of Dorhn, Ayers, and two other Weather Underground members, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary.
In a January 2004 interview of Dorn and Ayers posted on the film’s website, they were asked, “Would you do it again under similar circumstances?”
Ayers answered, “Being almost 60, it’s impossible to not have lots and lots of regrets about lots and lots of things, but the question of did we do something that was horrendous, awful?… I don’t think so.”
Dorhn’s answer was, “At the end of the day, I feel like we were lucky to be in that history. We were lucky to be in that history. We were lucky to be in that moment where there was hope and a sense of libratory possibility.” 25
In 2006, Bill Ayers took his fourth trip to Venezuela to speak to educational “reformers” who are part of Hugo Chavez’ Bolivarian Revolution. On Ayers’ website is the content of his speech. He said, “We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution…” He encouraged them to “continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane… Capitalism promotes racism and militarism – turning people into consumers, not citizens.”
In Spanish, Ayers told his fellow reformers, “La educacion es revolucion! Viva Presidente Chavez! Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta La Victoria Siempre!” 26
Chairman Obama. Co-Chairman Ayers. They are more than simply two guys who live in the same neighborhood.
J. Michael Sharman is an independent columnist who practices law in Culpeper. His column appears Tuesdays in the Star-Exponent.
1 http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/obama.ayers/ 2 http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/05/fact-check-is-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/ 3 Kurtz, Stanley “Founding Brothers: What’s behind Obama’s early rise?” Sep 24, 2008 http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTM4ZmU1NGFkODJlMjhmYjkxMjg4Y2Q0NTVlYjAzMmY= 4 Chicago Annenberg Challenge Board Of Directors Minutes, 3/15/95 5 Kurtz, Stanley “Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools” Wall Street Journal, Sep 23, 2008 6 http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/obama.ayers/ 7 Chicago Tribune, 12/21/97 8 http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/obama.ayers/ 9 http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/05/fact-check-is-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/ 10 http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/obama.ayers/ 11 http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/obama.ayers/ 12 Smith, Dinitia “No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen”, The New York Times, September 11, 2001 13 http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet/scheertranscript.html 14 Smith, Dinitia “No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen”, The New York Times, September 11, 2001 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all 15 “The FBI’s analysis of its motivations, beliefs, and international travels are outlined in this summary.” http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm 16 http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/05/fact-check-is-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/ 17 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/radicals_8-22.html, TALES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, AUGUST 22, 1996, TRANSCRIPT; and Smith, Dinitia “No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen”, The New York Times, September 11, 2001 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all 18 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/radicals_8-22.html, TALES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, AUGUST 22, 1996, TRANSCRIPT 19 Smith, Dinitia “No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen”, The New York Times, September 11, 2001 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all 20 http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/the_william_ayers_he_knows.php 21 Smith, Dinitia “No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen”, The New York Times, September 11, 2001 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all 22 Smith, Dinitia “No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen”, The New York Times, September 11, 2001 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE 1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all 23 Coburn, Marcia “No Regrets” Chicago Magazine, August 2001 http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/ 24 Horowitz, David “Allies in War”, FrontPageMagazine.com , September 14, 2001 http://www.islet.org/horowitz/20010914.htm 25 “The Weather Underground: Exclusive Interview : Bernadine Dorhn and Bill Ayers” , January 2004 http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/interview.html 26 http://billayers.wordpress.com/2006/11/07/world-education-forum/

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.