RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/07/24/eric-holders-keystone-state-voter-id-shakedown/

Eric Holder’s Keystone State Voter ID Shakedown

The Eric Holder Justice Department has done it again, this time in Pennsylvania. Not content to use Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to shake down Texas and South Carolina, the DOJ yesterday sent a demand to the Keystone State for stacks of documents regarding Pennsylvania voter ID.

This letter was a highly irregular and purely partisan exercise designed to stoke Obama’s electoral base in Philadelphia. It is also designed to placate the civil rights industry, which has quietly simmered about the lack of enforcement of the Voting Rights Act to help minorities over the last three years. (See, Wade Henderson – Cat Got Your Tongue?)

The demand letter to Pennsylvania was sent pursuant to 42 U.S.C 1974. This law requires election officials to preserve election records for 22 months after an election. It is designed to ensure that no racial discrimination occurred in the conduct of a particular election. For example, poll books from 1966 would have to be kept for 22 months to ensure that both black and white voters who were properly registered were actually allowed to vote.

Like so much with this Justice Department, the partisans have perverted the law and demanded far more than the law allows, so much so that even liberal former DOJ lawyers are surprised.

Note that Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez signed the letter. Normally, when I worked on cases involving 42 U.S.C. 1974, either the trial lawyer or section chief would sign the letter. It may be that Chris Herren, the current section chief, would do neither what the career partisans below him wanted nor what the political gangsters above him wanted. Internal dissent may be afoot, and with good reason.

The letter also demands that Pennsylvania turn over information far beyond what Section 1974 envisions. The letter reads like a discovery request in litigation, which of course it is — it’s just that the litigation hasn’t started yet. In fact, it is almost impossible for DOJ lawyers to write a “J-Memo” without Pennsylvania’s cooperation. That’s another way of saying Pennsylvania is most likely to be sued only if they cooperate with the demand letter.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/when-universalism-threatens-national-loyalty?f=puball

As I stood at a public meeting hand over my chest pledging my loyalty to this republic, I asked myself how many going through this ritual actually care or appreciate the unique character of the United States. So far down a universalist slope have we gone that few objected when a former Mets first baseman, Carlos Delgado, refused to stand for the Star Spangled Banner. Even Superman, the distinctly American comic book character, whose motto was “truth, justice and the American way” has been transmogrified in a 2006 film, mouthing the words “truth, justice and ‘all that stuff’.”

The American character, embracing idiosyncratic national virtues, is under siege through a global dream of common “humanitus.” After all, we are all the same moving inexorably to citizenship of the world. Or are we? Should Superman wear a U.N. badge as he engages his mortal enemy Lex Luther?

Transnationalists from Ann Marie Slaughter to Dean Coe decry nationalism and, by extension, the need for patriotic sacrifice. What they are saying is join the global party by renouncing your American identification. It is not surprising that several Supreme Court justices used foreign precedents to substantiate opinions on national cases. One wonders what a Zimbabwean court can possibly suggest to American justices.

Citizenship, if it has any meaning, cannot be an appeal to abstractions like worldwide camaraderie. It exists in a particularistic phenomenon related to tradition, the Constitution, language, creed, and custom. “We the people” the first three words in the Constitution, do not refer to any people; they refer specifically to the citizens of the United States. The union in the word “united” applies specifically to our history. We transformed the “United States are…” to the “United States is” through the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution and the Civil War. That is not world history; it is American history and it is woven into the fabric of national identification.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/have-you-ever-been-inside-a-cair-civil-liberties-lecture

At 8:40 PM Saturday night June 9, 2012, the Council on American Islamic Relations Tampa Director Hassan Shibly, Esq., presented a “Know Your Rights Civil Liberties Conference” at the Masjid Al-Bir in Kissimmee, FL.

The Masjid Al-Bir is a two year old pale green 15,000 square foot Mosque facility located in a remote rural part of Kissimmee, FL off Old Tampa Highway. As we approached the entrance of the Mosque, the women were instructed to enter through the women-only entrance leading them into a small area enclosed by a 6 foot solid white vinyl outdoor fence one could not see in or out of. We did not see or hear from the women until we met again in the poorly lit outside parking lot after the event was over. CAIR and the Masjid Al-Bir had no sensitivity towards the non-Muslim women who were not allowed out of the enclosure even after the Maghreb (evening) prayers were concluded.

Upon entering the Mosque, my video camera and press credentials were clearly visible when Jamal Hassouneh, Masjid Al-Bir Board Member, approached me and said he will need to speak with the speaker (Hassan Shibly) to see if video would be allowed. A few minutes later Mr. Hassouneh returned and said,

“You can stay but no cameras, no recording…because this is basically for the community and that is our policy…you are welcome to listen, there is nothing secret about it but we will not allow cameras or recording.”

It is unusual for a publicly advertised community event to be so secretive, but that is Mr. Shibly’s prerogative and we graciously complied. Mr. Shibly described his lecture as a “community event” and a “community empowerment session” in his opening remarks, and that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Community Event means Muslim Community Only

Mr. Hassouneh had used the words “community event” several times so it caught my attention, and only later we would learn that the “community” meant the Muslim community as a separate group within the larger Central Florida community.

In an email exchange with this reporter, Mr. Shibly articulates the separatist nature of what was mischaracterized as a Civil Liberties Conference when he wrote,

“Anyway this was not a meeting for the public, it was an education seminar for the Muslim community conducted in a Muslim place of worship. It was advertised only to the Muslim community one of two ways. 1. Fliers were put in the Mosque so the attendees of the Mosque to could attend. 2. An email was sent via constant contact ONLY to the email list of Muslims in Florida. The general mailing list, or the mailing list of media, was NOT included. I think you found out about it because you or someone you know has signed up on our Muslim community email list. Otherwise you would not have even received notice of the event. Anyway that was fine with us. But again this was not a public forum or event, it was a private event for the Muslim community on private property.”

Mr. Shibly, nowhere on your flyer does it say “Muslims Only”. Then again you couldn’t really say publicly your civil liberties lectures discriminate against all non-Muslims, could you?

The United West demands that Hassan Shibly attend a personal sensitivity training class to help him understand how his intolerant rhetoric violates the civil rights of all those who do not follow Islamic doctrine and theology. It is the height of insensitivity to say on behalf of CAIR Tampa that your Civil Liberties event was for the Muslim Community only and out of the goodness of your heart you allowed us non-Muslim dhimmis to attend.

Mr. Shibly’s lecture next went into the disclaimers when he said, “no recording of this session is allowed whether it’s audio, visual, or otherwise and the reason for that is very simple. Anyone that is recording will be trespassing on the property illegally and we will pursue that.”

Free Speech Is What I Tell You It Is

Immediately one of the Mosque members got concerned and asked if he could take notes. Mr. Shibly said,

“Notes for personal purposes exclusively are allowed, other than that they are not allowed. So for personal education purposes, so you understand. Anyone writing for the purposes of defaming the Muslim community or writing about the Muslim community or like, that would be considered trespassing, thank you.”

Mr. Shibly, your proclamation that a person cannot defame or write unflatteringly about the Muslim Community is patently offensive to America’s right to freedom of speech, especially at a self-described “civil liberties conference.” Mr. Shibly is trying to limit this reporter’s 1st Amendment right to comment on anything that may be “defaming” the Muslim community. That is not only absurd, it could not be under any circumstances a “trespass” under applicable statutes and case law, see Winselmann v. Reynolds. There is additional case law backing up this reporter’s claim however, this article’s purpose is not to go into the weeds on legal theory but to show one or two examples exposing where Mr. Shibly’s threats and legal knowledge are intended as nothing more than adult bullying tactics.

The Legal Showdown

Simply put, Hassan Shibly, Esq., cannot dictate and purposefully try to intimidate how this reporter or anyone else writes or speaks about what was observed at the Masjid Al-Bir CAIR Civil Liberties Conference. According to Fl. Statute 934.02(2), Stvenson v. State, any criminal of civil “trespass” claims would be frivolous.

Mr. Shibly is an American civil rights lawyer using our laws as a billy club to deny this reporter his first amendment rights. It may not seem like much on the surface but Mr. Shibly’s quote from above, “… Anyone writing for the purposes of defaming the Muslim community or writing about the Muslim community or like, that would be considered trespassing, thank you” follows one of the most important tenets of Shariah-compliant Political Islam, but it certainly does not follow American law.

Mr. Shibly is right that defaming the followers of Islam, Islam as a political ideology, or the Muslim community (ummah) is a punishable offense called blasphemy. When one defames the Muslim community they are committing blasphemy against Allah and his messenger and it is considered a heinous act to the followers of Islamic political doctrine and theology.

Abu Hanifa and Muhammad explain Free Speech, Shariah Style

One of the most renowned and eminent scholars of Islam Imam Abu Hanifa said,

“Muslim speaking against the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) should be executed and if it is a non-Muslim who doesn’t have a contract he should also be executed.”

To fully understand the importance of defaming the “Muslim community” to a follower of Islam one must go back to the life of Muhammad for proper guidance.

“From “The Life of Muhammad” source document.

“The poets of old Arabia were equivalent to our TV presenters. They tended to make fun of Muhammad and his claims of prophethood. Muhammad was determined to eliminate this mockery.

Muhammad was sorely tried by several poets. One was Asma bint Marwan. When her latest verses were recited to the Prophet, he cried out, “Will no one rid me of this daughter of Marwan?” Umayr ibn Ali, a clansman of hers volunteered. That night she was sleeping, her youngest child still at her breast, when her clansman thrust his sword through her. On that day new converts were won as they could see the power of Islam.”

A month later an almost identical situation occurred. This time it was the poet Abu Afak, reputedly over a hundred years old, who raised the Prophet’s ire. Muhammad exclaimed: “Who will avenge me on this scoundrel?” and Salim ibn Umayr was the helper of God.”

The Muslim Community and Law Enforcement

Mr. Shibly said,

“17 out of 20 of the alleged terrorist plots that involved Muslims in the U.S. was actually setup by FBI Agents. What they do is find some idiot, misguided, often mentally retarded, or troubled individual and they provoke him…brainwash him Until he agrees to do something haram, illegal, immoral, and disgusting. When he agrees to do that (terrorist attack) and he doesn’t have the means, so they (FBI) give him the means. And when he accepts the means they arrest him.”

Shibly just told the 40+ Muslims in attendance that the FBI entraps 85% of the Muslims arrested on terrorism charges. These types of claims against the FBI, spoken by a Muslim civil rights lawyer, Imam, and CAIR Director, builds distrust between the Muslim community and all levels of law enforcement. Mr. Shibly also conveyed THAT the FBI preys on the Muslims who are idiots, retarded, and misguided. Mr. Shibly’s message can be interpreted by some, that if you talk with law enforcement you are a retarded idiot.

Shibly is cleverly hitting on Islamic cultural hot button triggers. Middle Eastern men are very proud and if you imply they are anything other than strong intelligent men – it is a severe cultural slap in the face, especially by someone who is in a position of authority. The next hot button issue for Muslim men is the topic of women.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/muslim-brotherhood-wields-big-influence-in-obama-administration

Many in the media are condemning Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and four other congressmen who sent a letter to the State Department Deputy Inspector General, and the IGs of four other agencies, calling for investigations into the possible infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) of the State Department and other agencies. What’s gotten the most attention is the fact that the letter to the State Department singled out Huma Abedin, the State Department’s Deputy Chief of Staff, who has been a close aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton going all the way back to her time as First Lady, during the Clinton administration. Abedin is also the wife of the disgraced former congressman from New York, Anthony Weiner.

This has caused quite a ruckus, with charges of McCarthyism hurled at Rep. Bachmann, and a split among Republicans, including Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, plus Speaker of the House John Boehner, who have sharply criticized Bachmann and the letters she and the others have sent. The Left is having a field day, the conservatives and Republicans are scrambling to contain the issue.

But there is a bigger picture here. Should we care if indeed the Muslim Brotherhood has gained a foothold throughout the Middle East, and if they wield significant influence within the Obama administration? Or does that make us Islamophobic? What shouldn’t get lost in all this are the policies of the Obama administration that have helped facilitate the ascendency of the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly in Egypt. Investor’s Business Daily has made it abundantly clear that that is exactly what has taken place. In the editorial, titled “How Obama Engineered Mideast Radicalization,” they lay out the following timeline:

2009: The Brotherhood’s spiritual leader – Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi – writes an open letter to Obama arguing terrorism is a direct response to U.S. foreign policy.

2009: Obama travels to Cairo to deliver apologetic speech to Muslims, and infuriates the Mubarak regime by inviting banned Brotherhood leaders to attend. Obama deliberately snubs Mubarak, who was neither present nor mentioned. He also snubs Israel during the Mideast trip.

2009: Obama appoints a Brotherhood-tied Islamist – Rashad Hussain – as U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which supports the Brotherhood.

2010: State Department lifts visa ban on Tariq Ramadan, suspected terrorist and Egyptian-born grandson of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna.

2010: Hussain meets with Ramadan at American-sponsored conference attended by U.S. and Brotherhood officials.

2010: Hussain meets with the Brotherhood’s grand mufti in Egypt.

2010: Obama meets one-on-one with Egypt’s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who later remarks on Nile TV: “The American president told me in confidence that he is a Muslim.”

2010: The Brotherhood’s supreme guide calls for jihad against the U.S.

2011: Qaradawi calls for “days of rage” against Mubarak and other pro-Western regimes throughout Mideast.

2011: Riots erupt in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Crowds organized by the Brotherhood demand Mubarak’s ouster, storm buildings.

2011: The White House fails to back longtime ally Mubarak, who flees Cairo.

2011: White House sends intelligence czar James Clapper to Capitol Hill to whitewash the Brotherhood’s extremism. Clapper testifies the group is moderate, “largely secular.”

2011: Qaradawi, exiled from Egypt for 30 years, is given a hero’s welcome in Tahrir Square, where he raises the banner of jihad.

2011: Through his State Department office, William Taylor – Clinton’s special coordinator for Middle East transitions and a longtime associate of Brotherhood apologists -gives Brotherhood and other Egyptian Islamists special training to prepare for the post-Mubarak elections.

2011: The Brotherhood wins control of Egyptian parliament, vows to tear up Egypt’s 30-year peace treaty with Israel and reestablishes ties with Hamas, Hezbollah.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

Let’s skip over the issues for a moment and get back to the basics. Elections are transactions in which we buy the services of a candidate for four years. Like any other business deal, closing comes down to salesmanship.

There are two basic elements when buying a product or service.

1. Practical. “I need this product.”

2. Emotional. “This product makes me feel good.”

Smart shoppers will make a practical decision, but not everyone is a smart shopper. And even smart shoppers employ emotional elements. Many people will buy a product because of their associations with this brand, even if the brand only exists as a logo stamped on products by workers in Shanghai. Most people want to feel good about the product that they’re buying, they want to feel comfortable with their purchase.

This is where the media plays its most insidious role, providing reassurance to Obama buyers that they are doing the right thing and damping their unease, while doing just the opposite for Romney buyers. The media can’t compel someone to vote one way or another, but it can encourage bad decisions and discourage good decisions by providing false levels of confidence through their reporting.

Romney has the same problem as a company with a good product, but bad media coverage. The way to counter that is on two fronts, by providing practical consumers with the specifications to help them make informed decisions, and providing emotional consumers with the reassurance that they can count on him.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Patient Jihad Mohamed Morsi’s recent election as president of Egypt has proved a matter of concern. A candidate from the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, many fear that Morsi’s victory, along with the Brotherhood’s parliamentary successes, will threaten Egyptian-Israeli peace. More generally, it is unclear whether the Brotherhood, now empowered in its native […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444025204577547141392397120.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

Last night New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg made an extraordinarily dangerous and radical pronouncement. He was appearing on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” when the host asked him: “Why do so many Americans not feel angry enough to demand further gun control?” Here’s his answer:

Well, I would take it one step further. I don’t understand why the police officers across this country don’t stand up collectively and say, we’re going to go on strike. We’re not going to protect you. Unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what’s required to keep us safe.

After all, police officers want to go home to their families. And we’re doing everything we can to make their job more difficult but, more importantly, more dangerous, by leaving guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them, and letting people who have those guns buy things like armor-piercing bullets.

The Puffington Host reports that Bloomberg is not standing behind his statement: “According to a tweet from New York Times reporter Kate Taylor, Bloomberg tried to walk that statement back on Tuesday. ‘I don’t mean literally go on strike,’ Bloomberg said, according to Taylor. ‘In fact in New York they can’t go on strike–there’s a law against it.’ ”

We are unable to comprehend what Bloomberg could have in mind when he says he didn’t mean his comment “literally.” Last year, when lefties went hysterical over “violent” and “eliminationist” rhetoric from the right, it was clear that almost all of the examples they cited were not literal. Politicians and political observers have long drawn metaphors from the language of combat. Some such metaphors, like the word “campaign,” are so ingrained in the language that they are dead ones.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303933704577532994127093660.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
ANDREW ROBERTS’ BOOK THE STORM OF WAR IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS ON WORLD WAR 11…..RSK

Enjoy the sports competition, but shield yourself from the self-congratulation about world peace.

The 2012 Olympiad, which opens in London on Friday, will doubtless witness another astonishing exhibition of sporting endurance and excellence. It will also see yet another outburst of utter drivel from its organizers about what the Games themselves can achieve for the human spirit. Enjoy the former by all means; abjure the latter at all costs.

“The longest national Olympic torch relay in history will create a spirit of community and world citizenship,” claimed the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, in 2009, adding this year that, “Through the Olympic spirit, we can instill brotherhood, respect, fair play, gender equality and even combat doping.” Like every IOC president, he is repeating the view of the modern Games’ inventor, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who in 1892 stated that the Olympic ideal represented, “The true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced the cause of peace will have received a new and strong ally.”

For all that the IOC trots out these platitudes, the fact remains that if anything it has caused more international bitterness and resentment than it has calmed. Far from finding “a new and strong ally” in the Games, the cause of world peace has been betrayed by the IOC time and again.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/07/the_commies_commie.html

The Communist who’s the subject of the stunning new biography by Paul Kengor is Frank Marshall Davis. He’s the black poet, journalist, and activist whom the young Barack Obama hung out with as a teenager in Hawaii, then wrote a weird, disturbingly affectionate poem about entitled “Pop” while a student at Occidental College. He’s the man whom President Obama describes as his mentor in the latter’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father.

Here’s Kengor’s summary of the man our president so admires:

Frank Marshall Davis was a pro-Soviet, pro-Red China, card-carrying member of Communist Party USA (CPUSA). His Communist Party card number was 47544. He did endless Soviet propaganda work in his newspaper columns, at every juncture agitating and opposing U.S. attempts to slow down Stalin and Mao in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He favored Red Army takeovers of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Central and Eastern Europe as a whole. In China, he urged America to dump the “fascist” Chiang in support of Mao’s Red forces. He wanted communist takeovers in Korea and Vietnam. He was adamantly, angrily anti-NATO, anti-Marshall Plan, anti-Truman Doctrine. He argued that U.S. officials under President Harry Truman — whom he portrayed as a fascist, racist, and imperialist — and under secretaries of state George Marshall and Dean Acheson were handing West Germany back to the Nazis, while Stalin was pursuing “democracy” in East Germany and throughout the Communist Bloc. He portrayed America’s leaders as “aching for an excuse to launch a nuclear nightmare of mass murder and extermination” against the Chinese and the Soviets — and eager to end all civilization.

Wait, it gets better — sorry, worse. Once again, here’s Kengor’s summary of our president’s beloved mentor’s political views:

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/07/what_peace_process.html

As Mitt Romney heads to Israel this week, he would do himself and us a real favor were he to take along Deception: Betraying the Peace Process, the book published by the invaluable Palestinian Media Watch. Deception, co-authored by PMW’s Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, is a collection of their regular reports. So Governor Romney can just dip in and out and still be abreast of the plot.

These are in-house translations of the everyday fare transmitted to Palestinians and Israeli Arabs by the PA-controlled media — TV, radio, and newspapers. It is an understatement to call these reports scary. After reading them, one might be excused for asking, “What peace process?”

The book is divided into three main categories. First is non-recognition of Israel, which includes denying Israel’s history and erasing it from all maps. Second is incitement of hatred — the demonization of Israel, indeed of all Jews. And the third category is the promotion of violation of Jews and the glorification of terror against Jews. An additional fourth section is devoted to a look at a PA-funded youth magazine, Zayzafuna. Featured among the exhortations for children to keep clean and study hard are poems submitted by the kids themselves. A typical example, this one from a high-school student:

Oh flower of the valleys, oh my Jerusalem

Oh mother of Arabness and of the Arabs,

I belong to you since my birth

And to your soil after my death…

If only I were a sword and a gun to liberate you, oh Palestine.

The authors admit that the book is “sometimes repetitive.” However, “the volume and repetition are part of the PA message itself.” Thus, certain names and themes are repeated over and over until their memories are secure — or as we would say, ad nauseam.